


to save a life i didn’t have

by TheBigCat



Category: Sunless Skies
Genre: Body Horror, Fix-It, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Plants, Rescue Missions, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:34:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21849004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBigCat/pseuds/TheBigCat
Summary: The Reckless Driver has disappeared into the Nature Reserve, never to be seen again.This simply will not do.
Relationships: The Captain & The Incautious Driver (Sunless Skies)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 37
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	to save a life i didn’t have

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elijah_was_a_prophet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elijah_was_a_prophet/gifts).



> Thank you so much for pinch-hitting; you are the backbone of Yuletide society! Your prompt for Sunless Skies reminded me of how much I love the Driver and how sad I am about the Bad Ending that I ended up getting because of my bad Hearts roll. Hopefully this checks your body horror and crew-as-family boxes at least somewhat. Happy Yuletide!

The Captain cuts her way into and through the Reserve with a knife borrowed from her Aunt and a cold, focused determination that would probably scare her if she were on the outside looking in. It had certainly done a very good job of scaring the staff of the Research Station – usually they would have insisted on providing her with an escort, but not today. Not with that look in her eyes and that knife in her hand.

The Inadvisably Big Dog is by her side and in uncharacteristically subdued spirits, too. She hadn't been sure about how much use it would be on this particular expedition, but it had all but insisted upon tagging along, as much as a large dog with no real English abilities to speak of can insist upon doing anything. The Driver's trademark goggles, left behind in the struggle and chaos of their departure, are strapped firmly over the Dog's furry forehead. Properly equipped indeed.

It takes entirely too long to reach the great shrivelled tree at the heart of the Nature Reserve, almost as if the Reserve itself had been fighting against them as they progressed towards it. And it's beautiful, in a dreadful sort of way. The purple-and-black flowers all along the trunk sway in a nonexistent breeze, turning their faces towards these new visitors. Fine emerald spores hang like dust in the air. The Captain digs out a handkerchief from deep within a coat pocket, clasps it over her mouth and nose with one hand, and approaches the tree, walking with all of the confidence and murderous intent of someone who's been sent to kill Queen Victoria herself.

“This,” she tells the Verdant severely, one hand on the Dog's back to steady herself in case of emergency, “was entirely uncalled for. Completely out of order. I'm not impressed in the slightest.”

She's spoken with the Verdant before; taken it upon herself once for the Driver's sake. It wasn't exactly what she would ever deem a pleasant experience, but she can't deny that she knows what it feels like – and how to deal with it, namely, with a core of perfectly-crafted steel in every word spoken and an unbending will. She can't show even the slightest bit of hesitation or resistance, or it might not just be the Driver who's lost forever in this blasted forest.

“Give them back,” she says, fingers curling tightly into the fur of the Dog, who growls in the direction of the horticultural mistake in front of them.

The Verdant hesitates. The Captain sees the flower blossoms cease their quivering, feels the air become still around them. She grits her teeth, and takes a step forward. “ _ Give them back _ ,” she growls, incandescently furious.

Despite her words and her bearing and the way that she's come charging into this situation with furious intent, she still only half-expects this half-thought out rescue plan of hers to work. After all, the sight of the Driver – once simply Incautious, turned miserably Reckless by the rot blooming within them – ranting and raving and thrashing under the crew's desperate attempts to hold them back before stumbling off into the Reserve with frenetic, jerky movements to disappear forever, had been very final-looking indeed.

But she hasn’t made it this far as a Captain to simply go around abandoning the crew of her locomotive when they do ridiculous, foolhardy things such as vanishing into the uncharted depths of the trees and wilderness in order to become one with the local wildlife. That would, quite simply, be neglectful of her. And she may be many things – including bold, reckless, dangerously low on sovereigns, in possession of half a dozen unique scarves in a range of delightful colors and patterns, and laughably terrible at poker, even when she’s cheating – but neglectful is not one of them, and she has no plans on it becoming one now.

Nonetheless, when the tree begins to unwind, agonizingly slowly – bark twisting back and unfurling, branches writhing unnaturally, flowers retreating back into the leafy green darkness as the whole of the Verdant moves its entire being to reveal what’s within – the Captain can’t quite stop her breath from catching in her throat.

The Driver is cocooned in a ghastly embrace of local flora that's far too enthusiastic for its own good. Vines wrap around their arms, their chest, their neck – so tight that in some places it's impossible to tell where the Verdant ends and where the Driver begins.

They're half-sunken in the moss and dirt, plant life slowly dragging them down even as the emerald green and yellow rot creeps up their skin. It's halfway up their forearms, ringing their neck, and where the moss hasn't got to yet, their skin is so pale as to be ghostly white. The scar running down their face stands out starkly, a ragged line drawn quickly and roughly in red ink across their skin. There are small sprouts of green growing through their hair, which is so caked with dirt that its original color is impossible to discern. The green of their Verdancy spills out of their ears and nose. Their eyes are open, but blank and unseeing – and they don't twitch in the slightest, not even at their exposure to (relatively) open air.

Blood drips sluggishly from a slight cut in their forehead – inflicted, the Captain remembers, during a particularly desperate (and ultimately fruitless) part of the scuffle of their departure. It's only been a few hours – it really ought to have healed by now; it makes no sense for it still to be bleeding.

A vine curls around the side of the Driver's head, a horrible parody of a tender embrace, and over their forehead to rest just over their right eye. Even as the Captain watches, something blooms into existence over that eye – petals and leaves and thorns growing from nothing into a perfect violet flower. Its petals settle and curl outwards, as if displaying itself to the world at large – the Driver doesn't even blink – and only seconds later, a shade of red so dark it's nearly black creeps over the edge of the flower, the color travelling through the flower like dye.

It's not hard to guess where this new color is coming from, and the Captain is hit by a wave of rage so sudden and intense that she almost blacks out for a few seconds, but the Dog – who really is a very good dog, no matter what the rest of the crew frequently say and yell and scream in protest – nudges her leg and thumps his tail rhythmically against the ground until she's calm enough to adjust the handkerchief over her mouth so it protects her just that much more and stride forward to start unearthing her Driver from their floral prison.

She tears the flower from their face first, wincing slightly as it tugs at their wound and spills more blood down over their nose, and then starts attempting to extract their legs. The Inadvisably Big Dog is already doing his bit – pawing at the ground and the moss with proportionately inadvisably big paws – so it's all down to the Captain to dig her hand under their knees and heave upwards. And up they come, but not easily and not cleanly. It takes two more tugs to fully get them out, and on the second tug the Driver actually blinks twice and then starts screaming. They don’t appear strong enough for a good old-fashioned holler so it’s more akin to a thready, hoarse yell. 

The Captain curses in a most unladylike manner.  _ At least they’re conscious,  _ she thinks, and then she looks down at the ripped, utterly filthy fabric of their trousers and the bare feet beyond and realizes exactly why they’re yelling and why their white face has somehow gone even whiter under all the layers of grime and dirt. Their feet and exposed legs are bloody and raw, and where she’s been especially rough at tugging them out, she can see the exposed, still-twitching ends of the roots that have buried and wormed their way underneath the Driver’s skin.

_ It’s just how it is, _ she tries to remind herself,  _ it’s not a malicious entity, it’s just doing what it needs to to survive,  _ but that doesn’t change the fact that the Driver is hurt and panicked and just about nine-tenths dead already, and absently she realizes that ‘killing a sun’ has moved down a rank on her to-do list, with ‘ending the Verdant’s pathetic excuse for an existence’ taking its spot right at the top.

But first things first.

“Get out,” she snarls at the tree and the moss and the vines, “ _ get out of them. _ ” She tears at the thick tendrils around their arms with her bare hands until she remembers the knife, and then sets about hacking them to unnecessarily small and ragged pieces. “Out. Out!  _ Out! _ I  _ will  _ set you on fire and use the remaining charcoal for terribly unflattering caricatures of London’s mayoral candidates of 1897 – do  _ not  _ test me.” The vines keep creeping back, as quickly as she chops them away. The Verdant will not let its prize go without a fearsome fight. The Captain is more than happy to provide one. “You miserable overgrown piece of ornamental greenery –  _ out,  _ I tell you! Get  _ out! _ ”

The Driver is no longer yelling. Their eyes have rolled back in their head, exposing the whites. The Captain grimly and hurriedly pulls them as far away from the trunk as they can manage within a few seconds – the Dog digging his teeth into the back of their ruined coat and doing as much as he can to keep pulling them back – and then holds up her Aunt’s knife and stalks up to the trunk of the tree. A tendril of vine is creeping along the ground in the Driver’s direction. She kicks at it with a boot, squishes it firmly under a toe and slashes it away from the tree with one quick, sure swipe of the knife.

“Remove yourself from the premises,” she tells the Verdant darkly, gesturing at the Driver. “I’ll set the entire damned Reserve on fire if I have to _. I would like my Driver back _ , please and thank you very much.  _ Immediately. _ ”

For a second, she’s not entirely sure if it’s understood her, but then the Verdancy is spilling out of the Driver’s ears and nose, and it keeps on spilling, dissolving as it does so. The Driver’s eyes roll back, and for a moment she can see their wide-blown pupils and a rather startled expression on their face before their eyes flutter shut and they’re out like a snuffed candle.

The Captain decides it’s probably best to cut her losses and get moving before the Verdant changes its leafy, rotting mind. She loops one of the Driver’s limp arms over her shoulder, grunts slightly – they’re not heavy, exactly, but nor is she in the running for the title of strongest captain in the High Wilderness – and starts heaving them out of the Verdant’s spore-drenched clearing.

She makes it about halfway back to civilisation, or what passes for it around these parts, before she has to admit temporary defeat and find a log to rest against. She sits herself down, pulls the Driver against her side, and shuts her eyes briefly as the Dog rests at her feet, keeping vigilant watch.

And then she feels them stirring against her, and her eyes shoot open, and she sees their eyelids struggling to open. She feels like crying with relief a little bit – but only a little. A responsible, mature locomotive captain cannot be seen crying, particularly not by her loyal officers and crew. Not even if she’s just managed to rescue one of them from a fate that’s almost certainly a whole lot worse than death.

“Captain,” they say faintly, a beautiful smile blooming across their face as they catch sight of her. The Inadvisably Big Dog pants and yaps excitedly at the sound of their voice before bounding over to lick at the Driver’s face. They laugh breathlessly, and although their hands twitch a bit, they’re not entirely able to push him off. “And you – you... you menace. Hello there.”

“Hello, you,” says the Captain, and hugs them against her side, waving for the Dog to back down a bit – which it does, albeit reluctantly. “I suppose asking if you’re all right is more than a bit of a ridiculous question,” she says. “Nonetheless –”

“Mm,” they say, or rather, hum – and grimace slightly. “Hurts.”

“We’ll soon have you fixed up, don’t you worry,” she tells them with a joviality to her words that she doesn’t really feel. Impulsively, she leans over and pecks them on the forehead. They smell like deep, wet earth and rotting and flower petals, and are a warm weight against her side – maybe just a bit too warm for her liking.

They close their eyes for a moment. “I know,” they say, and then, “it’s gone, I think.”

“The Verdant?” she says, and it comes out more sharply than she’d like. “Well,  _ yes.  _ I should most certainly hope so.”

They approximate the faintest of nods. “It’s quiet,” they say, and she knows they mean inside their head. Her fingers curl lightly around their shoulder, and they press together in the cool, bright mistiness of the Reserve’s light. They cough, and try to clear their throat, and she tries to shush them, but they’re recklessly persistent, as always. “I – I don’t – don’t know if I like it. Like this.”

“Give it time,” she says, although she’s already afraid of the future. Instead of dwelling on it too much, she tugs the goggles from where they’re perched atop the Dog’s head, and retrieves their aviator’s hat from deep within her jacket. “Here,” she says, pushing them in the Driver’s direction. “Do you want me to-?”

“I’m filthy,” they say – voice cracking, a wry smile stretching across their face.

“That’s never stopped you before. Do you want them or not?”

They nod. Their eyes are bright with fondness and exhaustion, and they just lean on her while she tugs the hat over their dirty, wild hair and tucks stray strands of it back under, before looping the goggles firmly over the top. They look so much younger without them, and it’s somewhat of a relief to have them looking at least slightly back-to-normal – and they do seem a least a little bit happier for it.

“There,” she says. “Much better.”

The Dog snuffles and whines at them both rather pointedly, and she nods at it, appreciative. “We shouldn’t linger,” she tells them. “It’s dangerous out here without an escort.”

“I know,” they say, and they push themselves off her as best as they can. “If – if you’re ready to go, I am too.”

She pulls them back, squeezes them one last time, and then takes a deep breath in. “Good,” she says. “You’re – yes. Good.”

She hauls them to their feet inelegantly, and they brace their free hand in the Inadvisably Big Dog’s fur, and together they set off towards the warmth and chaos of their locomotive, which is far away but getting closer with every step they take – back towards their home. 


End file.
